I have to confess that I started manipulating VPL files
with a combination of SED and AWK some time before
fontinst started. I put so much effort into that that
I never started using fontinst, though I thoroughly
applaud the fontinst project. That is why I offer
crude, direct solutions to VPL miscodings, rather than
going through fontinst, which I only marginally understand.
You asked about why Xdvi would show different results from
dvips. The reason is that Xdvi does not send the dvi through
a PostScript translation, and only a PostScript translation
makes use of "virtual Font" techniques. I often run dvips
with the -o <output-file> option to look at cases like the one
you ran into. There are sites that use only that approach, but
I feel that the screen image produced by Xdvi is so much better
than that produced by PostScript renderers that my tired old eyes
demand Xdvi. Nevertheless, if you want to see what your
printer will actually lay down on paper, you have to
view the actual PostScript output with something like ghostview.
Moreover, ghostview, properly used, will actually let you see
colour effects when you need them. It may even be very good
at this. I can't honestly say because I haven't upgraded the
underlying ghostscript for several years.
Pierre MacKay
Email: mackay@cs.washington.edu Pierre A. MacKay
Smail: Department of Classics Emeritus Druid for
218 Denny Hall, Box 353110 Unix-flavored TeX
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
(206) 543-2268 (Message recorder)